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The National Geographic Bee is a national competition held by National Geographic that gives kids in 4th-8th grade across America a chance to win a college scholarship. To do this participants must compete and win in their school’s state. According to National Geographic Bee’s website, ”The National Geographic Bee is an annual competition organized by the National Geographic Society, designed to inspire and reward students’ curiosity about the world. Students in grades four through eight (4-8) from 10,000 schools across the United States will compete in the 2018 National Geographic Bee for a chance to win college scholarships and the glory of being the National Geographic Bee Champion.” Like every year, Middlebrook will be sending a student to the state competition and hopefully the nationals.

At Middlebrook, each teambase competed for a Geography Bee winner. There are seven rounds and in each round there is a question for each student in the classroom. Each round included several questions within a category of Geography. The student who answered the most questions went on to the team rounds to face off against the other teambase winners in their team. Next, each team winner went on to face off against competitors from other teams for a chance to be the school winner. This event was moderated by Dr. Priest of 6-Red. The school winner will be sent to state rounds were they will compete against other school winners.

Our school winner this year was Lukas Koutsoukos of 7-Red who also won the school round last year. This means he has won the geography bee at Middlebrook twice in a row! Lucas told Middlebrook Times how he feels about winning the Geographic Bee. “I feel like it’s a big relief that I don’t have to fear the questions and competitors anymore,” he said. The Middlebrook team winners he competed with were Adeline Pennucci form 6 Yellow, Christopher Du from 6 Red, Ryan Smith from 6 Green, Phillip Shim from 7 Yellow, Andrew Acosta-Rua from 7 Green, Sam Gioffre from 8 Yellow, Alexandra Gillespie from 8 Red, Thomas Musser from 8 Green. Mr. Matthews, 6 Green teacher mentioned, “My student Ryan Smith came in second overall.”

Middlebrook wishes Lucas good luck as he heads off to the state rounds!

Some important dates to keep in mind for the Geography bee:

October 2nd – February 2nd:

School geography bees are held. Students will compete to beat their fellow students in order to move on to the state rounds. The date and time in this time period will be decided locally.

April 6, 2018:

The state bees are held, every school winner in each state will compete to be their state champion and move on to the nationals.

May 20-23, 2018:

The national championships are held in none other than National Geographic Society headquarters, which is in Washington D.C. The winner of this bee will get a $50,000 college scholarship.

Past Winners:

The 2016 Geography Bee (the 28th National Bee) winner was a 12 year old by the name of Rishi Nair from Florida. He won a $50,000 scholarship and the glory of being the 2016 winner. He battled it out in Washington D.C. against 54 competitors and won. Last year, Pranay Varada won and got the scholarship. This year, our community hopes the winner will be Lukas from Middlebrook. He could take home the $50,000 scholarship and win it all!